Is a woman with 40 lovers in her past (before marriage) more likely or less likely to have affairs after marriage then a woman with 4 lovers in her past (before marriage)? is there any info that anyone knows of that discusses this behavior?
thanks, hol

HOL,
I have read many of your posts in the past and am aware of the great struggle and heartache you feel. I do not know where to suggest that you look for the answer to the question that you have asked. But I will tell you, I do not believe knowing the answer to that question is the greatest need in your life right now.<p>I think that question reveals the degree to which you are stuck on thoughts that will not help you personally nor your marriage. Man, I am sorry but I cannot help but think that you are obsessing on things that are going to kill you.<p>You have talked in the past about going to counseling and said that you were getting ready to begin with another new counselor. Have you begun yet? If so, what recommendations have been made for helping you?

w2b,<p>i must know, the more i know the better. i cannot be content not knowing about her or what to expect of her. i wanted to know the truth before we married but i was lied to so now i want the truth now. is that so wrong?
hol<p>[ December 28, 2001: Message edited by: h o l ]</p>

w2b, we 've been one time and i wouldn't say i've gotten any advice yet. oh, she did recommend that i start taking prozac.

HOL,
I have followed your posts for a while. From the first post I have been overwhelmed on your behalf. Man, you have a heap of hurt to work through. I feel swamped just thinking of how you must feel. And yes, I do understand the need for answers and also believe you should have the questions answered. But the answers you need are the ones you should have had all along, things pertaining to her past. Your question about whether her past means that she is more likely to cheat on you in the future is not one you can get a quick answer to.<p>It is not her past that will determine what she will do in the future, it is her present that will determine that. Yes, people who have made unwise choices in the past are more likely to make them in the future. People who had many partners are more likely than those with few to cheat. But I do not believe it is the number of partners that determines a persons future. What determines that is who the person has become.<p>Man, I sense in your writings that you really love your wife. Your great need is to find out how to deal with your new information in a way that does not continue to destroy your heart and love. You have got to focus on the woman that she was when you met and fell in love and the woman that she is today. People can and do change. She may hate her past more than you can ever know. Her past does not determine her future. Who she is now and what she wants to become does.

w2b,
I want to know about her past more so now then ever. I realize it is her present that matters most but the past is also a very important part of what you base your present decisions.
Yes, I do love my wife but that love was cultivated through lies using someone elses life as a model not her own. this makes me wonder if i am really just in love with the model but not the real person.
As far as hating her past she does not. She has told me how all of the men she slept with were very special to her (also almost all co-workers, waiters and bartenders) and even if she could go back in time there would only be 1 or possibly 2 men that she may not have slept with. she says she never slept with someone she didn't love and that makes me wonder, if she really loved 40+ deff men that much then why would i feel so special because she says she loves me (she thinks she loves everyone so now her love is just not that special to me anymore). i often try to picture her going to work and being there with 6, 8 or 10 men that she had slept with. that seems as though it would make most women very unconfrotable but she says she felt very confortable with it. thats a problem for me !<p>h

Man, everytime I read your posts I feel so burdened for you. I cannot begin to imagine the weight of the heartache that you carry. How are things between you and her right now? How is she reacting, acting, etc., with all of this going on? What is her attitude?<p>I am totally with regarding your need/desire to have answers to your questions. You have the right to that, and probably need more things answered having found things out now than you would have had you found them out sooner. How is she with answering your questions? Is she open to counseling and getting help and working this through?<p>You know it may well be that she claims to have loved all of these men because it helps her accept what she has done. Maybe she is also carrying a huge load of guilt and shame that she knows no other way of handling. I think people say a lot of things to help guard wounded hearts and hurts. They may not be intentionally lying, they are just not able to be honest even with themselves. They are self-deceived for the purpose os self-preservation.<p>Also, I am wondering if it is possible that the woman that you fell in love with is infact the woman that she is and not just a model. I mean that, no, you did not know the past, therefore you did not choose her with that knowledge. But maybe the woman that you met and feel in love with is who she is and not just some pretender. Maybe it is that the one who you fell in love with also happens to be someone with a gret deal of baggage in her history.<p>Did you still love her before you knew about the past? Or was your love growing cold before you learned about the past? Were you already starting to think that she was just fooling you? I am trying to say that maybe, just maybe who you have known and loved is the woman that she is. <p>My friend, it is sad that I am the only one responding to this, there must be some better help out there for you. But I will gladly continue this dialogue if you will keep writing.<p>Take care.

Yes, i was falling out of love with her before i found out about her past. After our first child she had no desire for sex, i tried to be patient but this continued for 11 years. we had sex once every other month at best for 11 years. if i touched her in a sexual way she would swing her arms at me and tell me to stop groping her. when i finally told her i had to go she changed and became very loving instantly. i was very suspicious. i told her i was convinced she was still in love with someone from her past and i was tired of waiting for her love. i felt i had to go, my self esteem had been crush for to long i didn't like the person i had been dwindled down to. she tried to convince me that wasn't the case.
then a few weeks later i came across her diaries and read them. i found that she was not the person i had been waiting for the past 11 years. she was not not even a person i would have dated seriously.
Now when we do discuss this issue she has tried to lie every step of the way. and that makes it worse. she will sit with me and tell me things about her and be very emotional and i'll start to feel closer to her for it but then i'll find out it was just more lies and it really hurts. i don't trust her anymore. i don't believe what she says anymore. i wonder if she has been faithful to. it's hard not to really doubt it!<p>[ December 30, 2001: Message edited by: h o l ]</p>

w2b,<p> i appreciate your responses.
thank you,<p>not that it matters but are you a man or women.<p>hol

This clearly has been a very difficult post to read. You married a woman who lied to you making you believe she was somebody she was not and a person if you had known would never have dated.
You had sex once a month for eleven years and when you told her you were leaving she changed. You find she had been with over 40 men and told you she loved almost all of them and the problem is yours if you cannot get over it. She consistently lies to you up to this day.
There are so many problems here it is difficult to begin where to start. I truly believe when someone says they love everybody then what they really are saying is that they love nobody or simply do not know what love it. I agree with many people that what the past is should stay in the past. The problem is that you were unaware of it and she lied to you about it. The fact is that she got you to marry her out of fraud which is quite serious.
I do found it odd that a woman who clearly enjoyed so much sexual freedom and partners would turn off sexually for so long and turn it back so quickly.
If you did not have children I would suggest walking away but the fact is that you do have children. Is she a good mother? I cannot ask if she is a good wife because you say she continues to lie to you.
Actually the more I write the more I realize I do not have an answer for you except to say I think what she did to you to get you to marry her is a disgrace and she should be ashamed of herself. The problem is she is not. I hope you are in therapy because honestly I do not know what I would do except that I know I could never feel the same way about her again. Let me ask you does she lie to you about others things? I wish you luck and am very very sorry for your pain.

bryanp,
yes, she is a great mother. no, she doesn't lie about other issues as far as i know. she tells that this is the only thing she lies about because it is not my business. i feel it is my business i think i have the right to know who i'm married to. i feel someone with her past is high risk. which brings me to my original question is someone with her past behavior more or less likely to be unfaithful? there must be a study on this topic some where. she alway used to tell me how she is so honest and had never been unfaithful to any of her past boyfeinds but that is a lie. she would have a boyfreind at work but also woulld be having sex with others at the same time. these guys would actually be working at the same restaurant. she also seems to think that even tho she would have sex with many men that worked with her that none of them would have ever mentioned it to anyone else at work there for she was not thought of as a slut at work. i find it hard to believe that even men as awesome as the ones she slept with could keep it as secret as she thinks. she's only fooling her self. or am i wrong? she says men are not like that only the ones i know are like that, hmm. oh, and by the way it was sex every other month not every month!!
hol<p>[ December 31, 2001: Message edited by: h o l ]</p>

Hello Hol,<p>I realized I never did answer your questions so this is just my thoughts after reading your last post. First I would think that if a person is unfaithful in the past continuously then the chances of that person being unfaithful in the present or future would be greatly increased since it has been a pattern of behavior and is part of their character. Second, it seems illogical unless there is a physiological reason that a person who had a great deal of sex with many partners would be suddenly satisfied with having sex once ever other month for 11 years. I would be very suspicious of her behavior. Third, the fact that she admits that she feels comfortable to lie to you about her sexual behavior because it is none of your business indicates that she would believe that having an affair would also be none of your business and would be comfortable about lying to you about this. Finally, you are absolutely correct that if she was having sex with lots of men at her work place then all of the men talked about it and knew about it. I would concluded it is for this very reason that she was able to have so many sex partners at work was precisely because the word was spread among the male workers that she was easy as far as sex was concerned. The belief that the men would not talk is laughable.
The bottom line is that she felt comfortable to lie and decieve you to get you to marry her and then change her behavior after marriage indicates that she simply is not a believable person and certainly capbable of being unfaithful. I do not see how you could trust her.
This is just my opinion and again I am sorry for your pain.

w2b, what do you think about bryanps reply. sounds alot like the way i feel.
h

one of the things that weighs on my mind about this is what if our children were to find out about it. it's bad enough to find out this type of info about your wife but i would never want our children know this about there mother. it would be devistating in so many ways. this may be another part of my paranoia
but it is possible, i did. our kids don't desirve to carry this burden.
just another reason why i don't buy into her response that "it's my past and shouldn't concern or affect any one else". that is very a false statement it can and is affecting other peoples lives, it definately has affected mine!!<p>[ January 01, 2002: Message edited by: h o l ]</p>

Partly related but still devestating...<p>My grandmother just _had_ to tell us about our moms A. (My grandmother seemed to relish poking our buttons.)<p>It was devestating. Something I really didn't need to know.

I just wanted to respond to the part about her having such an active sex life, and then hardly any for so long with you. I've read many of your posts, and it sounds to me like what she was doing with all those men was looking for love. Did she have a father growing up? Was she sexually abused?

LG, her father left when she was 8. she had and still has a step father. not very affectionate but a good provider. she swears there was no sexual abuse. i think she subjected herself to some sexual abuse with so many partners. she found love with me and she knew it so why did she reject me so long. did she just miss the variety? so with this background info does it mean she has been or will be able to be faithful to me or not.....
h<p>[ January 02, 2002: Message edited by: h o l ]</p>

Hol,
sorry I have been so long getting back to you. In answer to your first question, I am a man. I really believe that you need someone who is educated in the field of human psychology. Listen, without help, it will be very difficult for you to understand the things in her past and to interpret their impact upon her present. You need someone who can spend time with both of you who can help you understand the motive and reasons that led her to do the things she has done. What I suspect is that you are married to a woman who has been very hurt and broken for a very long time. I suspect that she craved love and intimacy and that she had a strong desire to know that she was wanted and accepted (which by the way are cravings and needs that we all have, but we do not all have the benefit of growing up in an environment where they are met). <p>These are needs and desires that we all have, they are normal and natural. However, when we grow up in a home where they are not met, natural desire becomes an un-natural craving. Sadder still, we will grow up in a world where we know too well the emptiness of our soul but we never have any way of learning the natural and healthy way to have these needs met. In a healthy home these needs are met naturally by the parents and other family members. Likewise, we have loving relationships modeled for us.<p>However, in a broken home, the child has the same needs and desires for love, but has no way to have them met and no one to teach her through example how to do so.<p>This emptiness leads many women to go out and seek fulfillment of natural longings for love in the very ways that you have described about your wife. When you view the situation through this lens, you will see that it is possible for your wife to say that she "loved" all of these men. In those relationships, she received what she thought was love. She was accepted, given worth, given attention, and had her deepest longings and cravings temporarily satisfied. The quality of the love she was given may be severely lacking, but to one who is starved to have normal and quite natural needs met, almost anything is better than the emptiness of nothing.<p>HOL, I do not know you or your wife, and I am assuming a great deal, but my gut tells me this is likely the story for your wife. You see, you must interpret her actions in the past through the a different lens than your own. She did not do the things that she did for the reasons that you think she must have. You cannot interpret her actions through your own set of presuppositions. Please read the next two sentences slowly and memorize them. You have sex for a different reason than she did. You think of love in a different way than she does. <p>If you continue to interpret her actions in the past through your own understanding, you will never truely "understand her" or "her past". Interpreting her past through your presuppositions will tell you why "you" would have done the things "she" did, and it will tell you what those actions would have meant to you, but it will not tell you why she did those things nor what they meant to her.<p>It is because of this, that I think I can understand her lack of desire for sex in your marriage. If my theory is correct, for her, sex was never purely about sex. It was not a strong desire for sexual fulfillment that drove her. It was not that she craved the physical act. What compelled her and led her to a promiscuous lifestyle was the fact that through these relationships she felt wanted, she felt love, (though an admittedly poor and shallow love). From these relationships she felt the normal and natural need for love and intimacy temporarily and partially met. <p>Now, if you are following me and my theory is correct, here is how I would answer your original question. If she was having sex with these men for the reasons that I have stated, then NO, I do not think it is a high probability that she will be unfaithful to you in the future. If she was after love and intimacy and acceptance, she has found that in her marriage. Her sex drive tapered off because it was not sex that she was really after. Furthermore, if she is now having her need for love met, (which by the way is in a much more fulfilling and lasting means, through the intimacy of a committed relationship) there would be no reason for her to go looking outside of her marriage.<p>I may be off base here. But I might not be either. I think there are some very deep and difficult issues here that you really need a professional to help you work through. You see, I feel that the pit you are in is growing deeper and deeper. Unless you are enabled to see the situation through her heart, mind, and past - you will not really be dealing with reality, but with her and her life distorted by the lens of your world view.<p>
All of that being said, it might also be good for her to change jobs, not for her but for you. She may not be tempted there, but there are very obvious reasons why it might be hard for you to have her in that environment every day.<p>I'll close this book for now.

w2b, what you just said has touched me more deeply then anything pretaining to this issue to date. thank you, <p>hol<p>my wife hasn't worked outside of the home now for 13 years.

As a happily married woman who has had many lovers in my past (I haven't counted, but somewhere between 15 and 25 I suppose) including both men and women, I have a few comments for you.<p>First, yes, my H knows I was married before, and had other lovers besides my first husband before meeting him. I don't feel any need to justify or explain my past behavior to him, and I have no need to examine his past relationships either. We met and married in our 30s, so it would be very unrealistic to expect either partner to have been completely inexperienced. <p>Upon our marriage, he and I took vows to be faithful to each other and forsake all others, and we have kept those vows, and trust each other to go on keeping them. Yes, I gave up "variety" to be with him only for the rest of my life, but I have no regrets. <p>Yes, I've had "better" more varied sex with other partners, but none of them brought to the relationship the deep friendship, sweetness and joy I have with my H. Fair trade -- sex is just sex; love and companionship are far more important. My H is not sexually adventurous, but then again my past lovers who were didn't have a lot else going for them. <p>H O L, it sounds like you have a problem trusting your wife, even though you say she hasn't given you a reason to distrust her. It sounds like you have a problem forgiving her "past" and moving ahead with today and the future. It sounds as if you may be using your wife's "past" as a focus for other problems and issues you are less willing to face.<p>If you could turn back the clock and married your wife as a virgin, would your relationship be any different? I bet not -- you would still be critical and mistrustful of your wife, but for some other reasons, for instance "she never had anyone before me, I wonder if she fantasizes about what it would be like with someone else". <p>The point is, you don't trust her, and you don't know why so you're assuming that it's because of her past sexual experiences. What I see is a disrespect of her commitment through your marriage vows to be with you alone and "forsake all others." <p>Finally, as for what the kids would think if they knew, why on earth would anyone contemplate discussing it with them? Surely it would be completely inappropriate to discuss this with children under any circumstances. <p>If there are rumors floating around that your kids might hear, perhaps it's time to move somewhere else so those things won't bother them. If nosy relatives keep wanting to raise the issue, lay down the law that it is none of their damn business, that it is harmful to your marriage and disrespectful of your wife, and if they ever raise the subject again you will cut them out of your lives.